Building up the XP

Main goal for building up the XP was to outfit it with reliable and maintenance free parts. The Stratus is a bike I use for almost anything : mostly touring, but also commuting, doing groceries, cycling holidays ... This means that the way I outfitted the XP will not make it the lightest or the fastest, but it is a bike that hardly needs any maintance and is trouble free. Therefore I chose to have a hub dynamo (Shimano DH-3D70) instead of battery powered lights, so no worries about running out of power. The hub dynamo might cause a little bit of friction, but the comfort of having light anytime and anywhere is more important to me.
For the same reason I chose the Shimano Nexus Premium 8-speed hub instead of a classic drivetrain. I have the same hub in my velomobile which I rode over 6000 miles so far, without any problems. I know the ROHLOFF hub has a wider gear, but I think it is simply too expensive. To make sure that my gear is wide enough, I put a double chainring in front. I put a short cage Shimano 105 rear derailleur on the rear hub, to allow switching chainrings in front.


On the front I put a new Shimano 105 road crank, simply because it is a beautiful one. On the steering I put 2 Shimano twist shifters. I use Shimano SPD-pedals on all my bikes, so the XP is no exception.


I chose Shimano rollerbrakes for my braking system, simply because they are more than powerfull enough and almost maintenance free. Only once a year you just squeeze some grease in them and that's it. In front I have a Shimano BR-IM70F rollerbrake combined with the dynamo hub. The front fork of the XP allows the mounting of disc brakes, but has no pat on it to mount the brake arm of the BR-IM70F propperly. Stopping power right now on the front wheel is not powerful enough, so I have ordered the BR-IM75F rollerbrake instead, which uses a small adapter so it can be mounted using the disk brake braze-ons.


I have SCHWALBE's Big Apples on both wheels, both size 26x2.00. They're big but comfortable and are supposed to be puncture proof. They ride light and I have the same tires on most of my other bikes.
For fenders I chose SKS. I did not know whether to choose the silver or the black ones, but since the XP already had a silver front fork and steering, I decided to go for the silver ones.

Problems so far is mainly the twist shifter for the front derailleur : it does not twist far enough to allow the derailleur to stay in place on the biggest chainring. I cannot ride the XP using the biggest chainring in front, unless I keep the twist chifter in place by gripping it firmly (not comfortable ). This means that now I "only" have 8 speeds instead of 16 available, so there's still some work to be done !